I'm a few weeks late to this particular dance, but I want to take a tardy spin around the floor, anyway.

While catching up on some reading over the weekend, I happened upon the Jan. 30th edition of Sports Illustrated . . . and learned that Steve Nash, the reigning Most Valuable Player in the NBA, had hoped back in the day to attend either the University of Washington or Syracuse.

Yeah, Syracuse. This Syracuse. Our Syracuse. The Orange.

In the story, it was reported that Nash, then a high-schooler, had written letters of introduction to both Washington and SU, but was ignored by both institutions. Which inspires the question: Who was sifting through the Orange mail back then?

"I don't want this to sound too egotistical," Nash is quoted as saying, "but what I heard later was that scouts and coaches didn't believe what they were seeing. It was too weird. A recruiter would see this average-sized white kid, and then he'd have to go back to campus and say, 'Hey, I saw this kid from Canada,' and before he finished, everyone would say, 'Hey, we got a thousand kids like that.' "

Nash -- who was born in South Africa and raised in British Columbia -- ultimately ended up at Santa Clara, where he evolved into the 15th overall selection in the 1996 NBA Draft. Now, of course, he is a 6-foot-2 member of the Phoenix Suns and on the short list of the finest basketball players on earth.

And, oops, he could have been an Orangeman.

"I owe so much to Santa Clara," Nash is further quoted in the magazine, "but honestly? I wish it would have been Syracuse or Washington."

Had the SU staff been prescient enough -- wise enough, too -- back in the early '90s to have responded to Nash's inquiry and offer him a scholarship, he'd have been a four-year teammate of John Wallace, which would have led to a fair amount of assists.

The Syracuse backcourt during those Non-Nash Years? It was as follows . . .

Though all of those guys were talented, Nash -- now a $10-million-a-year athlete -- would have been better than any of them. But then, while we can mourn having been denied the delight of watching Steve play in the Carrier Dome for four years, we can't kick too much.

Remember, that '95-'96 Syracuse club -- the one that would have served as Nash's senior-season Orange team -- did wend its way to the NCAA Tournament's title game against Kentucky. And you can't do much better than that.

But then, who knows? Maybe if Nash had been on the floor for SU that night in New Jersey, Jim Boeheim would have two national championships right now rather than only one. But, no . . . and so, we live with the knowledge of the great one that got away.

In the meantime, the presumption is that the mail is being read a bit more carefully these days up there on the Hill.